I want everyone to get as much out of this group as possible. I want every woman here to be engaged with tending to her people be they husband, children, family, extended family, church family, or friends.

If we want a next generation of women who have a burning hearthlight, we must let them be part of the homemaking. We must include them in the dance of getting food on the table on time, at the same time, and still relatively warm. We must train them in fabric and textures. We must show them and let them experience the delight of nurturing plants and selecting produce. We must showcase merry durability and cheering strength.

Being feminine requires great courage and wisdom and love. Stay in the fight, sisters. We must not allow the world to tell us motherhood is only changing diapers and thus boring, unimportant, and something we can do without. Motherhood is who and what we are down to our very bones. We must not allow the world to take true femininity away from us.

All these—Routine, Journaling, To-Do Lists—are suggestions for how to start being intentional in your home. It’s easy to both wing it or think it will just happen. It’s easy to disconnect in the repetitiveness. To manage your home well is to be prudent, diligent, purposed, and intentional.

When you start to dig deeper than simply cooking, cleaning, and laundry, homemaking has some beautiful, wonderful, intangible elements that we need to observe, harness, and tend. This is part of being a good homemaker.

Each stage interweaves with the ones around it. Maids should never be tackling marriage and babies on their own. Matrons should not refuse to share their skills and experiences with others. The link between Maids and Crones has been broken between the generations, we need to repair it. Crones must teach and train and encourage. All of us are tempted to believe the lies of our hearts and the culture. All of us, young, middle, and old must stand together, shoulder to shoulder, shield to shield, garden to garden, and hold the line on church, husbands, homes, and children.

Winter can be harsh and hard, as many of us Texans learned early in 2021. But part of being a Proverbs 31 woman is being prepared, cheerfully prepared. Take the long dark cold of winter and make her your handmaid for planning, nesting, tending, and loving your family.

Systems are one of the greatest tools in our tool chest of tending. They’re how we keep this thing called home grinding along. They’re how we keep things from getting missed or lost or forgotten. Everyone, even the more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants homemakers have systems. The goal is to see them, test their legitimacy, tweak slowly, and be better keepers and tenders because of labor. Let’s roll up our sleeves, tie back our hair, and get to work!

We’re the tenders, the warmers, the magic makers, taking our husband’s hard-earned income and turning it into scrumptious pies, painted cookies, hot punch, roast beast, garlands of greenery, strings of bright lights, stuffed stockings, and trees inside. (I love having a tree inside!) This is everyday, ordinary, deep, hobbit magic. And we are the practitioners of this art.

If we want to keep our attitudes in the right place and not lose the spirit of the season, we need to keep our eyes on the big picture, not on all the tasks. We need to focus on the delight and joy and purpose of the feast. Yes, it’s a ton of work, but work is rewarding.

Using the five senses to manage homemaking requires purposefulness and intentionality. We can’t have our head in the clouds, or be so frantic we’re rushing through life, or so discontent we just wish it all away. Noticing the five senses doesn’t require us to overturn our lives. We start small. It takes time to retrain mental habits. Start by just being thankful for temporary gifts filling this world. Once we start, worship fills our hearts. Thankfulness filling our hearts will go further in making home a delight than all the things money can buy.

HearthKeeping is closet-keeping. This means keeping up with the condition, fit, and organization of closets and clothes. But look deeper, this is an element of hospitality and communication. What you wear says something about your husband, it says something about your home, it says something about your homemaking, and it welcomes others or pushes them away.